Inbound Call Center Efficiency
The inbound call center department is probably more important than the other call center wings. The reason is that the callers who call up do so with the idea that they will be talking to an in-house representative of the company. They like to believe that they are talking to a person in authority. The call center agent needs to have that element of responsibility in the voice, and be friendly with the caller at the same time. This requires training and in most cases, years of practice. This is the department which can make or break your sales drive. The caller who has taken the effort to ring you up is definitely someone who is more than interested in doing business with you. How you turn that interest into revenue for your business is that you have to focus on.
With time, the inbound call center services have diversified. There are modern appendages like the interactive voice response system (IVRS). These facilitate the callers into obtaining the call center service that they need without much of a hassle. However, ask any caller and he will tell you that getting what you need in an IVRS system is a pain in the neck. There are too many unwanted options filling up the menu. While you are paying for every second ticking on the call, the answering service end is playing on hold music that refuses to end. When you finally get through to a live voice, you are asked a thousand inane details that are not needed to be recorded! That is the general plight of the IVRS system in most cases.
Even when you are calling up a customer care number that is manned, the time it needs to put forth your query really gets to you. Sometimes there is a barrage of stupid questions thrown at you. But the bad experiences with inbound call center services are not to be generalized. There are many premiere call centers out there that go a long way into ensuring that the callers get what they want in the minimum time possible. Such efficient answering service agents are not born, they are made. Your team of managers and trainers has to be at them so that they can be coached on the basics of telemarketing. The key point to keep in mind is that these agents would be the face of your business. So you better keep them in good shape or that might adversely affect the performance of your company in the sales department.
An efficient inbound call center department is like having a celebrity at the door to welcome guests to your house! Customers feel special and they are more interested in your products/services. The call center units realize this huge potential and that is why they sweat it out to make this department work in the true sense of the term. When it comes to BPO, the callers are the assets of the firm. To retain customers and to build up on the customer database, you have to welcome them properly and provide them services that will keep them close to your company.